Dresden, Germany--October 1995

Jet lagged, and nibbling crackers for nausea, the dutiful Regina Merritt was at her desk before any of her school of business colleagues. She skimmed through hundreds of unread emails caused by four weeks away on a teaching assignment in East Germany, sorted paperwork in her robot-like way into bins marked R (refer), A (act), F (file), T (toss), stacked 30 exams next to 30 case studies next to 30 marketing plans to grade.

She heard the Dean’s squeaky shoes in the hallway, grabbed a red pen and an exam, pretended immersion.

“Welcome back, Regina.” He glanced at her neat piles with an impish grin, collapsed in her cushy chair, yawned. “Give me the short story, I don’t have time for the novel.”

“The first two weeks, the weather went from summer to fall to winter. I tasted the best butter of my life at breakfast in my pension. All 30 students were monsters the first week, rude, challenging, unreceptive. Not sure if it was because I was a woman, an American, or if it was a test.”

“Maybe all three,” he said.

“The second week, the students had metamorphosed. It was a love fest. Everything I taught excited them, they asked questions and solved marketing problems in groups. Their enjoyment of taped Super Bowl ads I brought was expressed not by hand clapping, but by rapping knuckles on desks. They invited me to have coffee on breaks. Brewed coffee in porcelain cups with saucers. Elegant. Unlike our machine coffee in styrofoam cups.”

“Big picture?” he asked.

“Centimeters of change in the six years since the wall came down. High unemployment triggered a mass exodus of men to West Berlin, and many haven’t returned. They have access to more variety in goods, but not much discretionary income. Trabants are still on the streets pretending to be cars—tiny, ugly, plastic-bodied vehicles spewing smoke and screeching. Ironically, taxis are Mercedes.”

She gulped some water. “High number of suicides, and their preferred method? Step in front of a night train.”

The Dean cringed, stood to leave. “We’ve got the accreditors in the building. It feels like a frigging circus, and makes me want to retire early.”

“The free market shocked their systems. Try to imagine the United States turning communist overnight.”

“Can’t,” he said.

She handed him her copy of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. “Make this required reading for all professors going to Dresden.”

“Fiction?”

“So much more.”

“I’ll consider it. Meeting in two hours. Create a tip sheet for your colleagues next-in-line for Dresden.”

“Done.” She handed him Ten Tips for Teaching Success in Dresden.

“Damn, Regina. I hate it when you preempt my directives.”

“Es tut mir nicht leid (I’m not sorry).”

“Show off. I’m out of here.”

Her stomach twisted in on itself. Bathroom. Fast.

“Regina,” hollered Taylor, her only trusted colleague.

“Come to the bathroom with me. I’ll tell you the juicy parts.”

Speaking between stalls…

“Were you scared?”

“Sometimes. You know what, though, I made two big blunders.”

“Tell.”

“Secret tell and secret keep?”

“Of course. That’s our pact.”

“I showed the video, Rollerblading: How one company created a new sport, as a new product development example. Commuters blading to offices, hipsters on beach boardwalks trick-blading, kids clicking down stairways. Rockin’ background music. My U.S. students have always loved it. The Dresden students received it as a pile of dog shit.”

“Why?”

“Cobblestone streets and sidewalks. No smooth blacktop or cement in sight. In other words, no relatability. I felt stupid.”

They flushed.

“As the guys would say, that’s a ball crusher,” Taylor said.

“Come to my office.”

Behind closed doors…

“What was the second blunder?”

“One female student invited me to a play and dinner. Musicians played the most haunting music as an accompaniment. Any person speaking any language would understand its theme of war horrors.”

“And, the blunder? I’ve got to get to class, my dear.”

“Anika told me there was full employment before reunification. She had worked as a chemist. After the wall came down, jobs dissolved. It seems cultural expectations were placed in a blender and pureed. Confusion everywhere.”

“Blunder #2?”

“When she said, now all the jobs go to men, I asked her how that made her feel. Wrong question. Her eyes filled with ice like I had asked her to strip naked for a spanking.”

“What was the problem?”

“Some cultures share feelings, like ours. The East Germans do not.”

“Good to know. By the way, it’s been like a circus here with the accreditors creeping around.”

“Shut my door on your way out, please. I have a brute of a headache.”

Regina rubbed her temples, stared out the window. She transported to scenes from Dresden she’d share with no one. One Friday evening she fell asleep on the #26 tram, missed her transfer, and woke to discover the route had terminated in darkness near woods. She exited the tram, groggy and disoriented. The tram driver locked up and walked away.

She felt panic like she had felt as a child lost at a bazaar—sweating, breath rapid, heartbeat pounding, tears stuffed in her throat—when the crowd had swallowed her mother.

Breathe. Think of a joyful memory (instructions from her therapist).

Regina remembered a time picnicking with friends. Sunshine, wine, cheeses, baguettes, cherry pie, laughter, kisses, and ants.

Her chest expanded with courage as she explored the sounds of tinny music, shrieks and applause, the scents of popcorn and woodsmoke. A traveling circus had pitched on cleared land deep inside the woods.

A brawny man in baggy pants with suspenders and a tight fuchsia T-shirt appeared in front of her lighting a cigarette. “Bitte? Need help?”

She jumped, then nodded.

“I am Vicente Ortiz Ramos,” he said, and offered her a cigarette.

It calmed her.

He spoke a little English. She spoke a little Spanish.

He placed her in the front row to watch acrobats, clowns, and him juggle balls and rings while riding a unicycle. Later, with all the performers, she dined on schnitzel, gołąbkis, whitefish, potato salad. Lagers soothed her edginess, and gave her energy.

Vicente took Regina to his tent. It smelled like her grandfather’s cellar where he made the hoppiest of beers. Vicente told his story about emigrating from Cuba, bartending, loving the wrong women, and joining the circus. He showed off his collection of Tocororos, Cuba’s national bird. So far, he had carved 12 birds out of linden wood and painted them red, blue, and white.

In the morning, a monkey named Estafador held her hand as he walked them to the dining tent where they drank strong coffee and ate pfannkuchen (donuts filled with plum jam—more delicious than Krispy Kremes). Vicente had charmed her with his cave-dark eyes, large hands that settled her nerves, and red pointy-flat shoes. She stayed the weekend.

The Dean reappeared, “What was your most important takeaway from Dresden?”

Regina smiled and thought, I’m probably pregnant. Vicente and I did it so many times. “I need a little more time to figure that out.”